Ohio’s largest police union is endorsing an all-Republican statewide candidate slate for the first time in recent memory.
The Ohio Fraternal Order of Police endorsed governor candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, U.S. Sen. Jon Husted and the rest of the Republican ticket, which includes two candidates for Ohio Supreme Court seats.
Ohio FOP President Jay McDonald said the vote, which followed the FOP’s annual convention earlier this week, reflects his members’ view that the GOP candidates show more support for law enforcement than the current Democratic Party.
“Our people see what they believe to be attacks on law enforcement, and those attacks often come from the Democrat Party,” McDonald said. He added that those perceptions involve national Democrats, not the particular Democrats running in Ohio this year.
Candidates from both parties sought the endorsement through a process that included a questionnaire, a sit-down interview and one-on-one interactions with FOP members.
Police have become more aligned with Republicans in recent years. But that hasn’t necessarily been the case in Ohio. The state FOP endorsed seven out of eight statewide Democrats in 2018. The number shrunk to a single statewide Democrat in 2022. It has twice previously endorsed Sherrod Brown – a former U.S. senator who’s running for his old job this November – although it was neutral in the 2024 race that Brown lost to Bernie Moreno.
The FOP’s endorsement of Republican Ohio Auditor Keith Faber over Democrat John Kulewicz marks the first time the union has backed a Republican candidate for attorney general in 20 years. A significant number of AG employees are FOP members, and recent Republicans who’ve held the office – Gov. Mike DeWine and former AG Dave Yost – have had tensions with rank-and-file members.
Republicans also harmed their relationship with police unions by backing a 2011 bill that would have curtailed collective bargaining rights for public workers – which Faber voted for as a state senator.
McDonald said Faber was helpful to police unions during his time as president of the state senate, including in their lengthy fight to get workers’ compensation coverage for post-traumatic stress disorder.
“We believe he’ll be a law-and-order AG, and that’s what we’re looking for,” McDonald said.
In other endorsement news, Democratic governor candidate Amy Acton nabbed a couple this week: one from Reproductive Freedom for All, the national group once known as NARAL Pro-Choice America, and another from the Ohio Iron Workers Association.
Ohio EPA retreats on proposal of “generalized” permit for data centers
The Ohio EPA announced Tuesday it would back off from a plan to allow data centers to receive “generalized” discharge permits instead of case-specific applications. Making the change would require companies to provide more detail about their plans.
The change came after a review of a “significant volume” of public comments, including some from prominent figures on the right and left, such as Ohio U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, former Trump administration spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton.
The environmental regulators shelving the idea stands in contrast to state and local governments’ practice over the past decade of throwing sales tax exemptions, property tax abatements, air pollution permits and other favorable rulings at the industry, which has blossomed in Ohio, as Jake profiled last week.
State agencies join the Flock
Some Ohio cities have pondered or executed rollbacks of their relationships with Flock Safety, whose tens of thousands of AI-powered, license plate-reading cameras dot streetscapes around the nation.
But state agencies have waded deeper in.
Government agencies that oversee workers’ compensation, investigation of specific fires, prisons for adults and minors, and the attorney general’s office have all started paying tens of thousands to Flock each year for its surveillance technology.
Details on where the cameras go or how the data are used are thin. But cities have taken heat after revelations that federal immigration officials have tapped into the cities’ Flock data on thousands of occasions.
You can read more from Jake here.
Speaking of Flock, its cameras are all around Ohio State’s Columbus campus and the university just renewed a two-year contract for the technology, reports Signal Statewide Reporter Amy Morona.
Ramaswamy’s money advantage
Vivek Ramaswamy is massively outspending Amy Acton in this year’s governor’s race. Updated campaign finance filings show by just how much.
V PAC: Victors not Victims, a pro-Ramaswamy political action committee, now has spent about $14.5 million on ads, including $8.8 million between April and June, according to a federal campaign finance filing the group made last week.
As a federal Super PAC, the group can accept unlimited amounts of money, and it has gotten much of its funding from Jeffrey Yass, Elon Musk and a handful of other billionaires.
The PAC’s spending comes in addition to the spending reported by Ramaswamy’s official campaign committee. Ramaswamy’s campaign has reported spending about $17.9 million on media, digital consulting and direct mail.
All told – between the campaign and the PAC – the $32.4 million in pro-Ramaswamy spending is nearly eight times the $4.4 million spent on digital advertising and direct mail by Acton’s campaign. Acton has yet to run broadcast TV ads, which remain the largest target for campaign ad budgets.
Despite the massive spending imbalance, polling shows a tight race between Acton and Ramaswamy. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report, along with several other similar outlets, has rated Ohio’s governor race as a toss-up.
In the news
Feds advance plan to open 2,800 acres of Ohio’s Wayne National Forest to fracking. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management scheduled a September 2026 lease sale for 2,800 acres of Wayne National Forest, a preserve long sought by the oil and gas industry. This could mean fracking Ohio’s only national forest for the first time, Jake Zuckerman writes.
Ramaswamy could be Ohio’s first billionaire governor. While state financial disclosures offer a limited view of his net worth, recent federal regulatory filings show Ramaswamy is twice as wealthy as when he first declared his candidacy in early 2025, a review shows. His total holdings are now worth more than $2 billion, records show. Forbes magazine estimates he may now be worth close to $3 billion, writes the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Alex Coolidge.
Assault, misogyny, verbal threats: Records detail new allegations against Rep. Max Miller. Police reports and filings in a bitter custody dispute raise new questions about the conduct of an Ohio Republican as he campaigns for a third term, by Mother Jones’ Abby Vesoulis.
